I hope that everyone enjoyed May Day. I spent the latter part of mine marching with a few thousand other people down Lake St. here in Minneapolis in support of immigrant rights.

The boom box kept blasting a Victor Jara song that I now can't remember the name of. Victor Jara was and is a hugely popular Chilean folk singer, professor and political activist. He was a leading voice during the 'Nueva Canción Chilena', a movement characterized by the renewal and reinvention of Chilean folk music whose politicized lyrics depicted the struggle and desires of the working class. Victor Jara, like thousands of others was taken to the Estadio Chile (now named Estadio Victor Jara), which housed political prisoners during the dictatorship. Jara was kidnapped the day after the U.S. sponsored September 11th coup of 1973, which toppled the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende and placed Augusto Pinochet in power. There Jara was tortured and murdered. Although the military regime burned the vast majority of his master recordings his wife managed to sneak recordings out of Chile. It is because of her that his music and its message has continued to be heard throughout the world and within Chile.

Hearing his music yesterday brought me back to the May 1st that I spent on the streets of Santiago. Surrounding me were hundreds of thousands of workers, mothers, children, musicians, anarchists. We all marched together for our common rights as a worker and as a person.

Another artist responsible for the 'Nueva Canción Chilena' was the amazing Violeta Parra. The last song she wrote before she committed suicide in 1967 was 'Gracias A La Vida' (Thanks To Life), which has been a favorite song of mine since I first heard it in Chile years ago.

I am thankful for so much that surrounded my time in Chile, the people I met, the beauty I saw, the things I learned, and the music that I was exposed to daily.

The video isn't great, but it's the only one that I could find with the song.



-alice